^fT'^  <3  1 


Lake  Forest  University. 


Baccalaureate  Sermon, 


.    BY 


JAMES  G.  K.  McCLURE,  D.  D., 

Acting  President. 


JUNE   12,    1892. 

LAKE  FOREST,  ILL. 


UNWEpSiTY  OP  lUlW^S 

AUG  1   '  191 - 


l\^xjj<y^ 


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UNIVFRSTTY  OF  V^m  Vmr^ 

f  EB  2  1  1918 


II    THESALONIANS    2:iO. 


THE  LOVE  OF  THE  TRUTH,   THAT 
THEY  MIGHT  BE  SA  VEDr 


In  every  age  and  in  every  clime  the  question  has  been 
asked  "What  is  Man's  Highest  Good  ?  "  Thoughtful  and 
earnest  minds  have  wondered  what  the  consummation  of 
human  possibility  might  be. 

The  world's  teachers  have  given  widely  differing 
I  answers.  Buddha  has  said  Rest,  cessation  from  all  life's 
j  labors  by  absorption  of  the  individual  in  the  Eternal 
^Spirit  of  Peace.  Mohammed  has  said  Activity,  the 
^activity  of  feasting  and  continual  ministration  to  the 
desires  of  the  flesh.  Closely  allied  to  Buddha  is  every 
teacher,  who  proclaiming  materialism  makes  the  last  pos- 
sibility of  human  life  extinction,  and  closely  allied  to 
Mohammed  is  every  teacher  who  announces  an  Elysium, 
-  a  Valhalla,  a  Happy  Hunting  Ground  as  the  ideal  exist- 
^  ence  that  man  may  expect. 

^  Other  teachers  have  made  man's  highest  good  some- 
thing in  the  line  of  individual  character.  Confucius  did, 
as  he  predicted  a  life  beyond  the  present  in  which  a  man's 
own  moral  nature  would  be  his  joy  or  his  sorrow.  Soc- 
rates too  left  the  world  his  testimony  that  man  had  some- 
thing within  him  that  could  not  die,  but  would  move  on, 
in  a  realm  of  its  own,  carrying  with  it  its  own  atmosphere 
and  purposes,  of  good  or  of  evil. 


r< 


However  large  and  inviting  these  wise  men  made  the 
possibility  of  human  good,  that  good  was  so  qualified  by 
uncertainty  and  by  inadequate  views  of  character  that  it 
was  disappointing  and  insufficient  to  those  who  dreamed 
dreams  of  light  without  shadow  and  life  without  an  ele- 
ment of  decay.  Such  minds  needed  another  answer  to 
satisfy  their  ideals,  an  answer  so  great  that  they  could 
say,  ^'  We  can  ask  no  more,  we  have  heard  of  the  highest 
good  beyond  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  even  to  dream." 

There  came  a  time  when  that  answer  was  given.  It 
came  to  men  as  the  breaking  of  day  comes  to  the  earth. 
Slowly  and  out  of  the  darkness  there  appeared  the  shim- 
mering of  an  idea,  an  idea  of  faultless  approach  to  and 
communion  with  Perfection.  A  people  set  apart  for  this 
very  purpose  shot  up  rays  of  light  through  Patriarch  and 
Prophet,  through  Tabernacle  and  Temple,  until  the  idea 
almost  reached  its  dawn.  Then,  as  in  an  instant  the  day 
at  last  breaks  and  the  sun  is  risen,  there  came  the  answer, 
and  in  one  single  word,  the  word  ''  Salvation,"  spoken  by 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  highest  good  of  man  was  set  before 
the  world.  This  word  he  declared  was  the  final  expres- 
sion of  the  possibilities  of  man.  Here  was  the  ultimate 
privilege,  the  most  ennobling  inspiration,  the  crown  of 
human  life. 

The  teacher  of  Nazareth  used  the  word  salvation  in  a 
full  and  comprehensive  sense.  He  was  on  earth  to  save 
men's  lives.  Their  lives  meant  their  whole  being,  their 
complete  selves,  with  all  that  they  could  lose  or  gain,  in 
time  and  in  eternity.  Their  pains  and  their  pleasures, 
their  perils  and  their  possibilities,  their  losses  and  their 
opportunities  were  all  in  his  mind  when  he  made  the  end 
and  joy  of  his  mission  to  save  men. 


Viewed  simply  as  a  matter  of  deliverance^  viewed  neg- 
atively, Salvation  opened  a  vista  of  immense  privilege. 

Wherever  men  have  thought  and  have  expressed  their 
thought  it  has  been  evident  that  they  recognized  a  two- 
fold bondage  that  held  them  and  held  their  fellows — a 
bondage  to  ihQ  penalties  of  wrong  and  to  the  inclinations 
to  wrong.  The  penalties  of  sin,  the  hurtful,  self-per- 
petuating, debasing  penalties  are  sure  and  terrible.  Sin  is 
to  our  moral  nature  what  leprosy  is  to  our  physical 
nature,  it  interpenetrates,  it  weakens,  it  poisons,  it  des- 
troys. Its  work  cannot  be  described  otherwise  than  by 
figures  of  speech.  The  very  Son  of  Heaven  could  not  tell 
men  what  hurt  it  worked  out  save  as  he  spoke  symbol- 
ically of  "  the  worm  that  never  dieth  "  and  ''the  fire  that 
is  unquenched."  His  whole  being  shrank  back  from  any 
such  nnsuse  of  life  as  sin  brought  about.  The  havoc 
wrought  to  man's  possibilities  was  to  Him  terrible  beyond 
languao^e  to  indicate. 

Others  not  having  Christ's  conception  of  moral  com- 
pleteness have  used  his  words  so  inadequately  as  to 
belittle  their  force.  It  means  nothing,  absolutely  nothing 
to  many  minds  to  have  the  penalty  of  sin  described  by 
physical  screams  and  the  anguish  of  bodily  torture.  A 
promised  deliverance  from  such  makes  no  special  appeal 
to  us.  But  the  deliverance  promised  by  Christ,  a  deliver- 
ance from  all  disorder  of  soul,  from  all  meanness,  trickery, 
lowness,  selfishness,  impurity,  dishonesty,  greed,  hypoc- 
risy, with  their  attendant  evils,  that — that  is  a  deliverance 
which  is  sublime. 

And  the  deliverance  from  the  inclination  towards  evil, 
from  all  its  relish  and  all  its  love,  is  likewise  sublime. 
Noble  minds  are  distressed  because  of  the  inclination  so 
often  asserting   itself   to    be  sordid,  covetous,   unloving. 


4 

unholy.  It  was  the  cry  of  a  brave,  self-denying  hero, 
"  Oh  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from 
the  body  of  this  death  ? "  as  he  felt  the  workings  in  him- 
self of  a  tendency,  a  trend  to  do  what  was  low  and  weak. 
"  What  would  I  not  give  if  I  could  be  free  from  all  pro- 
pensity to  wrong ! "  has  been  the  expression  of  men 
whose  stainless  outward  life  was  beautiful  to  the  world's 
eye. 

Salvation  then  as  a  promise  of  mere  rescue,  a  deliver- 
ance from  the  effects  and  the  tendencies  of  evil  is  such  a 
good  as  might  well  stimulate  the  human  heart  with  cheer 
and  content. 

But  the  meanins:  of  Salvation  is  merely  suggested  by 
the  negative  idea  of  deliverance.  Christ's  power  and 
grandeur  lay  in  his  affirmations.  The  invalid  is  free  from 
disease  and  now  he  can  fill  his  heart  with  laughter,  the 
prisoner  is  free  from  captivity  and  now  he  can  gladden 
home  and  hearth  with  his  labors  of  love.  ''Bird,  you  are 
free,"  we  say  to  the  cageling  whose  wires  are  broken. 
'*  Go,  soar  !  Away  to  the  sunlight,  the  fields,  the  streams, 
the  flowers.  Spread,  spread  your  wings  and^z/."  Salva- 
tion is  opportunity  —  it  is  possibility  of  growth  into  like- 
ness to  God  Himself,  it  is  such  possibility  for  an  eternity. 
No  one  has  ever  conceived  what  the  outcome  of  this  pos- 
sibility will  be.  We  can  today  but  touch  the  outer 
fringes  of  the  idea.  What  will  it  be  when  all  the  powers 
of  our  life,  moral  and  intellectual,  social  and  spiritual, 
have  settled  into  perfectly  harmonious  movement,  when 
every  part  answers  to  its  end,  when  every  abiding  element 
of  character  shall  be  started  in  its  path  of  endless  pro- 
gress, when  new  fields  of  thought,  meditation,  labor  shall 
open  before  us  and  every  faculty  shall  meet  the  opportun- 
ity in  the  freshness  and  vigour  of  eternal  youth  !  All 
language  grows  dumb  before  the  idea.     Christ  suggested 


no  word  for  it  but  Life— Perfect  Life,  with  no  tendency 
to  weariness  or  decay,  but  rather  with  an  immortal  energy 
that  moves  on  as  the  very  Purpose  of  God  moves  on,  to  a 
hiorher,  ever  higher,  wider,  larger  possibilit}"  and  develop- 
ment. 

This  then  is  Salvation,  Man's  Highest  Good.  Have  I 
not  said  well,  that  more  than  this  man  cannot  dream  ? 

Happy,  happy  the  man  that  by  sovereign  Creatorship 
is  brought  into  a  world  admitting  of  such  a  consumma- 
tion. To  be  born  is  not  to  be  born  in  vain  when  salvation 
can  be  expected. 

But  how  is  this  Highest  Good  to  be  secured  ?  What 
is  the  process,  the  mean's  by  which  we  come  to  it  ?  In  a 
few  brief  words  the  answer  is  given  —  through  Love  of 
Truth,  an  answer  that  sums  up  for  all  men  and  for  all 
time  the  method  of  salvation. 

Truth!  What  is  Truth?  Pihite,  like  many  another 
whose  life  is  unreal  has  doubted  if  there  was  Truth. 
Truth  !  It  has  seemed  to  many  at  the  best  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  dream,  a  will  o'  the  wish  perhaps,  that  con- 
stantly invites  and  constantly  baffles  the  earnest  soul. 
How  it  is  laughed  about,  how  its  very  existence  is  denied! 

And  still  it  is.  It  is  the  real.  It  is  that  which  actually 
is.  There  may  be  much  in  our  world  that  seems,  that 
appears  to  be.  But  back  of  all  that  seems,  that  appears, 
back  of  the  deceptive,  the  temporary,  the  evanescent, 
there  is  the  real  and  the  real  is  the  true.  The  truth  in 
any  given  matter  is  the  reality  in  that  matter. 

Truth  thus  may  be  the  very  opposite  oi  piMic  opinion 
whether  that  opinion  comes  down  to  us  accredited  by  the 
traditions  of  past  ages,  or  dazzles  us  as  the  fashionable 
belief  of  the  present  hour.  It  may  be  at  variance  with 
the  sentiment  of  the  wisest  and  hest  individuals  whom  we 
know.     It   may    be  different   from  our  own  conceptions^ 


6 

however  strong  and  well  grounded  they  are  —  nay,  it  may 
be  different  from  our  very  convictions  though  those  con- 
victions have  cost  us  much  and  are  so  dear  to  us  that  for 
them  and  by  them  we  would  sacrifice  life  itself. 

That  man  is  a  Truth-seeker  who  in  any  sphere  of 
investigation  whether  it  be  the  sphere  of  physical  science, 
or  political  economy,  or  social  ethics,  or  business  enter- 
prise, will  surrender  and  pass  by  everything  that  seems  in 
his  indomitable  search  for  what  is. 

In  the  special  sphere  of  religious  investigation  truth  is 
the  actual,  the  real  with  reference  to  the  meaning  of  hfe, 
the  purpose  an<i  the  end  of  our  being,  what  we  are  and 
what  we  may  become.  The  lo<^e  of  any  kind  of  truth 
leads  us  to  integrity  in  the  sphere  of  that  truth.  The  love 
of  religious  truth,  teaching  us  how  to  live  in  the  higher, 
nobler  elements  of  being,  leads  to  integrity,  wholeness, 
completeness  in  the  sphere  of  religious  truth,  and  that 
completeness  is  Salvation. 

For  love  of  truth  involves  (1)  a  desire  to  know  truth 
(2)  a  search  to  find  truth  (3)  a  purpose  to  live  by  truth. 

A  deep  seated,  abiding  desire  to  know  truth  is  in  itself 
ennobling.  When  once  it  takes  possession  of  the  heart, 
the  heart  is  aroused  from  cowardice,  indolence,  habit, 
imitation.  Timid  minds  dread  to  plunge  into  investiga- 
tions of  moral  truth.  Indolent  minds  are  satisfied  with 
their  own  conceptions  and  do  not  wish  to  be  disturbed  in 
opinions  long  held  and  now  become  a  portion  of  them- 
selves. There  is  not  a  nature  with  the  least  tendency  to 
what  men  call  the  conservative  and  the  safe,  that  is  not  in 
danger  of  laziness,  if  not  of  arrogance.  Desire  to  know 
truth  keeps  a  man  forever  on  the  alert  and  makes  him  feel 
that  however  much  he  may  have  learned,  there  is  infinitely 
more  yet  to  be  learned.  The  world  stands  still  scientifi- 
cally when  chemists,  astronomers,  electricians  are  satis- 


tied  with  what  they  have  heard  and  seen.  No  new  ele- 
ments are  brought  to  light,  no  Copernican  theory  corrects 
and  overthrows  the  theory  of  Ptoloniey,  no  cable  obliter- 
ates time  and  space  with  the  flash  of  its  passing  message. 
And  the  world  stands  still  intellectually  and  morally  when 
men  are  so  content,  be  the  reason  what  it  may,  with  what 
they  now  think,  that  they  do  not  care  to  know  more, 
that  they  are  actually  willing  to  be  ignorant  of  truth. 

I  count  that  man  a  man  of  heroic  qualities  who  will 
stand  by  his  beliefs  so  long  as  they  mean  truth  to  him, 
though  he  must  die  to  be  faithful  to  them,  and  will  surren- 
der those  same  beliefs  the  instant  he  is  convinced  they  are 
not  the  truth,  though  that  surrender  means  the  giving  up 
of  the  dearest  theories  of  his  life.  Truth  is  indeed  a  very 
precious  thing  to  him  who  will  adhere  to  the  system  that 
expresses  it,  though  social  ostracism  and  ecclesiastical  cal- 
umny are  ready  to  crush  him,  and  who  will  withdraw 
from  the  system  that  expresses  falsehood  and  not  truth, 
though  his  name  in  an  instant  becomes  a  byword  and  a 
hissing.  Honest,  earnest  desire  to  know  truth  bespeaks  a 
purposeful  soul.  Those  who  rushing  headlong  into  every 
new  device  claim  that  they  are  actuated  by  desire  to  know 
truth,  deceive  neither  themselves  nor  others.  They  know 
too  well,  they  learn  quite  soon  enough,  that  every  new 
appearance  is  not  reality.  Desire  to  know  truth  is  not 
their  actuating  motive.  They  are  content  with  the  seem- 
ing, the  unreal,  the  disappointing.  The  life  that  really 
desires  truth  has  taken  into  itself  a  seeing  eye  and  a  hear- 
ing ear.  Mere  bubbles  are  not  long  beheld  as  solid  sub- 
stances by  it,  nor  are  Sirens  voices  long  considered  as  the 
call  of  duty.  Such  a  life  has  lain  aside  dull  sloth,  and 
has  lain  aside  fearfulness,  and  self-sufficienc}^  too,  as  it 
wishes,  in  its  inmost  heart — Oh,  that  I  knew  the  truth! 

The  love  of  truth  necessitates  a  search  to  find  it.     It 


never  has  lain  so  clear  before  any  man's  feet  that  he  did 
not  have  to  hunt  for  it.  Bread  is  intended  for  all  men, 
but  it  is  bread  to  be  discovered  in  the  kernel  of  the  wheat 
and  thence  evolved  by  processes  which  stimulate  human 
industry  and  skill.  Truth  is  meant  for  all  men,  but  men's 
minds  are  to  be  invigorated  and  their  whole  being  aroused 
into  energy  by  the  search  for  it,  the  effort  to  comprehend 
it.  It  takes  penetration  to  see  the  loaf  of  bread  in  the 
kernel  of  wheat:  it  takes  penetration  to  see  the  true 
meaning  of  things. 

Besides,  the  truth  of  to-day  is  never  quite  the  same 
truth  in  all  its  proportions  and  in  all  its  relations,  to-mor- 
row. Mount  Blanc  is  always  the  same — and  still  it  is 
never  the  same  to  the  traveller  who  sees  it  to-day  from 
the  north  and  to-morrow  from  the  south,  at  one  hour  at  its 
base  and  at  another  hour  from  the  distance.  We  grow 
older,  we  move  on  into  new  circumstances  and  into  new 
experiences,  our  horizon  changes,  our  view-point  alters, 
we  cannot  see  truth  as  it  actually  is  in  any  new  day  unless 
we  search  for  it  as  it  is  in  that  day.  The  great  God  is  the 
same  for  ever  and  ever — but  He  is  never  the  same  to  the 
man  who  searches  for  Him.  He  is  never  meant  to  be  the 
same.  He  is  meant  to  be  an  ever  new  revelation,  and 
unless  he  is  an  ever  new  revelation.  He  fades  away  from 
vision  altogether. 

Men,  therefore,  are  to  be  kept  always  on  the  march  in 
searching  for  truth.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  no  truth  is 
settled  once  and  forever  for  any  man  excepting  the  essen- 
tial axioms  of  duty.  There  is  another  sense  in  which 
truths  are  settled  sufficiently  for  progress  so  that  we  rest 
upon  what  we  have  found  up  to  date,  as  when  crossing  a 
stream  we  plant  our  feet  on  different  stones  as  far  as  we 
have  come  and  so  have  something  under  us,  but  we  press 
on  and  must  press  on,  for  we  have  not  reached  the  end 


9 

yet.     This  is  not  our  Rest;  we  must  move  forward. 

To  some  tlie  necessity  of  this  unremitting  search  for 
truth  is  a  fascination.  Men  have  said  that  they  enjoyed 
the  searching  for  it  more  than  the  finding  of  it.  It  was 
their  mistake  to  say  this.  That  was  to  make  the  excite- 
ment of  running  for  the  physician  more  than  the  health 
obtained  by  finding  the  physician. 

But  to  most  of  us  there  is  a  shrinking  from  this  con- 
stant inquiry  and  this  unceasing  movement  of  mind.  We 
want  to  stand  still,  and  not  think  and  not  question.  It  is 
enough,  we  say,  that  we  have  learned  what  we  have;  the 
vision  satisfies  us;  let  us  stay  in  the  land  of  the  Lotus 
eaters  and  be  quiet  and  restful. 

And  still  how  much  better  it  is  that  as  yet  the  best 
and  brightest  of  us  know  but  in  part,  that  there  is  undis- 
covered country  still  ahead  of  us,  that  limitless  expanses 
of  fact  still  await  our  footsteps  and  that  truth  secured  is 
only  an  earnest  of  abundant  truth  still  to  be  gained. 
Who  that  has  found  truth  and  has  obtained  ideas  of  life 
which  correspond  with  the  reality  of  things  does  not 
rejoice  that  the  search  .is  not  over,  that  all  is  not  founds, 
but  that  every  day  there  shall  be  a  new  advance,  a  new 
conquest  and  a  new  joy,  to  him  Avho  follows  whitherso- 
ever truth  leads! 

And  the  love  of  truth  includes  also  o. purpose  to  live 
by  it.  Truth  is  an  end  as  well  as  a  means.  As  a  means 
it  calls  us,  attracts  us;  as  an  end  it  desires  to  become  a 
very  portion  of  ourselves.  When  it  is  taken  into  our  life 
so  that  it  moulds  and  controls  our  views  and  conduct,  it 
puts  within  us  the  elements  of  genuineness.  To  love 
truth  for  truth's  sake  is  not  to  love  truth  for  truth's  end. 
Truth  is  not  satisfied  when  the  drunkard  knows  the  worth 
and  praises  the  beauty  of  sobriety  while  he  himself  is 
intemperate.     Truth  calls  no  one  her  lover  who  believes 


10 

it  well  to  appear  as  an  angel  of  light,  but  who  still  holds 
fast  to  a  dark,  a  satanic  heart.  Truth  is  very  jealous  of  her 
own  mission  to  man's  character.  She  will  have  man  true 
to  truth,  else  man  shall  be  incapacitated  for  finding  truth 
at  all.  She  will  not  be  sported  with.  She  will  not  stay 
with  him  who  does  not  live  what  he  has  so  far  recoo^nized 
as  true.  Right  thinking  will  stop  as  soon  as  right  living 
stops.  To  know  more  truth  than  we  endeavor  to  fulfill  is 
to  dim  our  vision  to  the  beholding  of  further  truth:  nay 
more,  it  is  to  become  blind  to  the  very  truth  we  once  rec- 
ognized. We  cannot  feel  its  force,  we  cannot  long:  recosf- 
nize  its  worth  and  be  sensitive  to  its  beauty. 

The  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail  is  in  point  here.  The 
cup  that  the  Hero  of  the  Ages  held,  and  from  which  he 
drank  before  he  passed  to  the  scene  of  his  triumph  and 
coronation  on  Calvary,  could  not  be  found  save  by  him 
who  was  pure  and  holy.  Let  the  knight  who  would 
obtain  the  Grail  be  spotless.  It  was  folly  for  the  unchaste 
to  seek  the  Grail.  It  would  never  allow  itself  to  be  even 
touched  by  his  hand.  And  let  the  life  that  would ^/zc?  the 
tmth  be  a  true  life  and  the  life  that  would  heep  the  truth 
be  a  true  life  also,  for  truth  does  not  believe  that  any  soul 
cares  for  her  who  does  not  take  her  to  his  heart  and  hold 
her  in  his  heart. 

To  love  truth  is  to  desire,  to  seek,  to  live  truth. 

Consider  now  the  attitude  of  mind  into  which  love  of 
truth  puts  one.  How  eager  it  is  for  light  upon  life,  how 
it  inquires  what  is  best  and  surest,  how  it  appropriates, 
as  the  body  appropriates  food,  every  principle  that 
appeals  to  sense  of  right!  Will  that  soul  make  no  mis- 
take ?  It  may  make  many  and  great  mistakes.  It  may 
be  led  into  what  you  and  I  call  egregious  error.  This 
condition  of  mind  may  send  the  fakir  of  India  a  thousand 
miles  which  he  measures  day  after  day  by  the  leno^th  of 


11 

his  prostrate  body  on  the  ground  until  he  can  reach  the 
sacred  Ganges  and  bathe  therein  to  be  clean  from  sin.  It 
may  make  a  man  shout  the  shout  of  the  dervish  until  he 
sinks  from  exhaustion  and  becomes  the  comfirmed  para- 
lytic. It  may  lead  him  to  be  the  inquisitor  who  will  drive 
women  and  children  to  a  death  of  disgrace  and  torment. 
It  may  cause  him  to  sacrifice  his  every  physical  virtue  as 
he  endeavors  to  be  true  to  what  he  understands  to  be  the 
truth.  But  whatever  it  leads  him  to,  there  is  something 
noble,  grand,  heroic  in  his  truth  to  truth  for  character's 
sake  —  and  he,  rag-covered  and  dirt-besmirched  if  you 
please,  puts  to  shame  the  elegant  idler,  the  careless  trifler, 
be  he  spotless  in  robes  and  gold,  because  he  so  infinitely 
transcends  him  in  moral  purpose.  And  we  may  be  sure 
that  beside  him  such  an  idler  is  the  merest  chafi'  in  the 
unerring  judgment  of  the  omniscent  and  almighty  God. 

Given  such  an  attitude  of  mind  and  then  let  the  same 
opportunity  be  granted  to  see  and  hear  and  feel  the  Christ 
that  Paul  had,  and  it  will  be  inevitable  (if  the  time  be 
suflicient)  that  the  soul  will  receive  and  rejoice  in  Christ. 
There  will  be  a  correspondence  between  such  a  love  of 
truth  and  Christ  himself.  As  the  needle  veers  to  the  pole, 
the  lover  of  Truth  will  veer  toward  Christ.  Christ's 
words  will  be  seen  to  show  forth  principles,  ideas,  facts  as 
they  are.  His  teachings  will  be  found  to  be  basal 
teachings,  lying  at  the  very  foundation  of  things, 
a  support  on  which  any  life,  any  institution,  any 
society  may  build  with  absolute  assurance  of  stability. 
His  example  will  approve  itself  as  showing  forth  the  ideal 
manner  of  life,  an  example  that  followed  must  secure  in- 
tegrity, beauty,  peace,  strength  and  holiness.  In  a  word 
the  lover  of  Truth  will  see  in  Christ  the  true  Teacher,  the 
true  Master,  the  true  Redeemer,  the  true  Friend.  Christ 
will  become  to  him  the  embodiment,  the  expression  of  the 


12 

truth  that  he  loves.     He  will  put  himself  at  His  feet  to  be 
taught  of  Him. 

But  even  then  the  quest  for  truth  will  not  be  over.  It 
will  simply  have  its  direction  shaped.  In  the  ways  and 
words  of  Christ  there  will  be  something  new  to  be  learned 
unceasingly.  Each  year,  each  month  new  phases  of  His 
truth  will  open.  He  will  continue  to  grow  larger,  and 
ever  there  will  be  a  greater  Christ  and  ever  there  will  be  a 
greater  soul,  and  this  will  always  be  so  long  as  the  Infi- 
nite is  to  be  studied  and  the  soul  of  man  grows  with  the 
advancing  comprehension  of  the  Infinite. 

The  chaos  of  human  life  largely  disappears  in  view  of 
Man's  Highest  Good  and  the  method  of  attaining  it 
through  Love  of  Truth.  Life  ceases  to  be  enveloped  in 
mystery.  The  rightness,  the  fulhiess,  the  opportunity  of 
life  assume  form.  The  problem  of  finding  the  complete 
and  exact  truth  does  not  cease  to  be  most  great,  but 
the  value  of  living  faithful  to  what  truth  we  have  discov- 
ered assumes  new  proportions.  The  search  for  all  truth  is 
never  to  stop.  Forever  and  forever  man  is  to  travel  on 
in  the  realms  of  the  new,  the  fresh,  the  exhilirating  as  he 
advances  in  his  search  of  all  truth.  He  is  never  to  be 
satisfied  with  what  he  has  found.  The  future  will  ever 
beckon  him  on  and  hope  and  purpose  with  all  their  attend- 
ant joys  will  always  abide  with  him.  Eternal  life  means 
eternal  energy,  eternal  development,  eternal  delight,  in 
this  search  for  Truth.  No  man  can  over  estimate  the  re- 
ward that  awaits  the  soul  surrendered  to  the  love  of  all 
truth. 

And  no  man  can  over-estimate  the  reward  that  attends 
him  who  is  consecrated  to  the  living  of  any  truth  and  of 
every  truth  already  found.  He  may  think  that  he  has 
found  but  very  little.  It  may  seem  to  him  that  the  truth 
he  knows  is  but  a  mere  nothing.     But  let  him  cling  to  it, 


IB 

cherish  it,  keep  it  —  living  that  truth  —  if  it  be  no  more 
than  the  truth  of  kindness  and  honesty  and  reverence  — 
and  he  will  find  that  that  truth  in  enough  to  lead  on  to  the 
purification  of  his  soul,  enough  to  work  changes  in  his 
character  that  have  the  promise  and  the  potency  of  end- 
less good. 

In  this  world  of  ours  there  is  one  thing  that  cannot  be 
shaken  or  injured.  No  man,  no  devil  can  hurt  Truth, 
because  Truth  is  the  Real,  and  the  Real  is  the  ever  abid- 
ing is.  He  that  is  on  the  side  of  Truth  is  on  the  side  of 
the  unconquerable,  the  indestructible.  Truth  cannot  die. 
It  is  idle,  it  is  foolish  to  attempt  to  defend  the  truth  with 
indig^nant  feelinofs  and  bitter  words.  Truth  will  stand 
unmoved,  and  it  is  ours  to  take  our  tone  from  Truth's 
immobility  and  be  calm  whatever  assaults  are  made  upon 
Truth.  Happy  the  man  that  realizes  that  as  no  one  can  save 
truth  no  one  can  destroy  truth,  and  realizing  this,  sees  to 
it  that  as  he  hopes  to  live  a  successful  life  he  makes  Truth 
his  friend  and  ally.  How  would  the  rampant  words  of 
those  who  hate  truth  die  away  if  their  speakers  were  only 
wise  and  understood  !  And  how  would  every  individual 
forsake  all  artificies,  all  insincerities,  hypocricies,  decep- 
tions, and  cry  out  for  truth  in  the  inward  parts  and  truth 
in  ever  fibre  of  his  life,  if  he  were  only  wise  !  How,  too, 
would  everyone  who  had  one  feeling  of  responsiveness  to 
truth,  one  emotion  stirred,  one  pity  aroused,  one  high 
sentiment  evoked,  transmute  that  feeling  into  immediate 
action  and  make  that  truth  his  own  forever,  make  himself 
Truth,  if  he  were  wise !  Men  are  ruined  by  falsehood  ; 
they  are  saved  by  Truth  —  and  saved  to  a  salvation  which 
in  the  gracious  love  of  Heaven  means  Deliverance  from 
every  bondage  of  wrong,  and  Opportunity,  full,  boundless 
and  eternal  for  growth  into  the  very  mind  and  joy  and 
nature  of  the  ever  Blessed  God. 


14 

Members  of  the  Graduating  Classes:  As  I  look  into 
your  faces  and  understand  the  import  of  this  hour  I  am 
moved  with  a  great  tenderness  of  Spirit.  For  you  and  I 
are  not  strangers  but  friends.  Many  a  time  we  have 
touched  hands  and  many  a  time  we  have  touched  hearts. 
I  have  for  you  individually  great  regard  and  great  affec- 
tion. Wherever  3^ou  may  go  in  the  future,  you  will  al- 
ways have  the  invisible  but  the  actual  presence  of  my  fond 
wish  beside  you.  I  have  watched  your  course  of  study 
here  with  unceasing  and  eager  interest.  I  have  lifted 
many  a  prayer  to  Heaven  for  each  one  of  you.  I  have 
asked  God  to  lead  you  and  keep  you  and  use  you  as  shall 
be  best  for  your  highest  welfare  and  for  the  world's  wid- 
est good.  May  He  answer  my  many  prayers  abundantly 
above  all  that  I  have  hoped. 

Today  the  message  of  Life's  greatest  Possibility  has 
been  set  before  you.  May  the  vision  of  this  Highest  Good 
never  be  absent  from  your  thought.  Live  for  this  noblest 
and  grandest  of  possibilities.  Never  be  discouraged  or 
depressed  because  the  fulfilment  of  the  vision*  tarries. 
Never  be  enticed  from  it  by  the  allurements  of  the  unreal. 
Keep  the  eye  upon  the  vision  and  press  forward.  If  3^ou 
love  truth  love  it  so  that  your  thoughts,  your  feelings, 
3'our  words,  your  deeds  are  true,  so  that  you  are  true. 
Then  you  will  be  honest,  earnest,  meek,  brave,  pure  and 
kindly.  You  will  be  drawn  closer  and  closer  to  Christ. 
He  will  be  your  Pattern,  your  Inspiration,  your  Hope. 
May  this  be!  And  then  sometime  may  there  come  a  con- 
verging of  your  earthpaths  and  mine  until  at  last  we  find 
ourselves  together  once  again,  and  we  are  forever  in  the 
Presence  of  the  Living  and  the  True  God. 


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